Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Bear Valley - March '09

We got back from Mexico on a Wednesday night. As exhausted as we were, we couldn't let that stop us from heading up to Bear Valley the next Friday. Bear Valley is about 3.5 hours East of San Francisco, close to Yosemite. Our buddy Lew had a place there and invited us up for the weekend. We arrived Friday night and relaxed. On Saturday, Lew, Russ and Stephanie went skiing while we went cave exploring with Nikki at Mercer Caverns and then headed into the town of Murphy's for some wine tasting. We cooked a yummy dinner Saturday night, played some games and then headed home on Sunday (but not before stopping at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Outlet in the town of Tracy - the milkshakes rocked!). It was a nice vacation from our vacation.

(click image for bigger picture)

Our place:


We went panning for gems before exploring the cave (very exciting!):


Gold! There's gold in thar!


Mercer Cavern:




Wine tasting at Murphys:




There are frogs all over Calaveras County and it's the home of the Jumping Frog contest, as written by Mark Twain in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".


Jen had to have a cupcake. Too bad it got destroyed in the car before she got to enjoy it:


Lew, Nikki and Russ chowin' on some awesome homemade pizza:


Happy about something!








Pretty drive to and from Bear Valley:




The wind farm on the way. Go Cali!

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